Category Archives: Musings

The nights are cold again with frost spiking the windows and the darkness begins to come earlier. Apples hang ripe on gnarled trees, the wind carries the smell of wood smoke and change. The sun casts across the land at a low angle, it seems to be a deeper more …

On the weekend of April twelfth, I left three feet of snow behind me, and traveled to Northern Michigan University. I was presenting at a conference about imagination and mythology called “Imagining the Fantastic 2”. Other presenters were writers M.T. Anderson, Holly Black, and Ari Berk, artist Charles Vess, actor …

Here is an interview I did a few months back with Joseph Parker, it was used to create this cool infographic about how to build your own iron throne. Use this Infographic to Build Your Own Iron Throne | Mental Floss. General Questions How did you become interested in …

Anvil translated from its early root anfilte roughly means “build-on” — the object which the smith builds things on. The anvil is the altar at which the smith shapes the world; it has a kind of magical appeal. It is solid and massive. It is a symbol of weight and …

I’ve been working on layers of projects, drawing, designing, writing proposals, figuring out steel and leather. Part of what I’m doing has involved looking back, examining the hoarded images I have and evaluating my career as a swordsmith. I found this picture of Peter Johnsson and me tracing and measuring …

I spent a large portion of my time this week either on the phone with UPS or worrying about the parcel which they lost. Earlier this winter I constructed the Mace of Molag Bal for the web video series Arcade Arms, I shipped it out on Jan 7th for them …

Sketching is drawing for no-one — there’s no imagined audience. When it works, I let go of my need to make it good, to decorate the page, and just see what I’m looking at. The tree becomes a strange twisting puzzle of shapes I’ve never seen before, shapes that seem …

The January thaw, that’s what the old ones called it. Winter lets go for a span of days and rain comes, melting much of the snow away. The forest opens up a bit. I walk through the trees, the ground is crushed down from where the snow was. There is …

Winter clutches the land. It had been so cold that snow was like sand, squeaking under boots, drifting on roads, light as dust. Then the weather changed. Rain came and howling wind, the rain froze when it hit the roads, highways are closed, littered with spun-out ambulances and snowplows. The …